After finishing our first WWOOF stay in Ardèche, and with two more hosts lined up, we headed out of Curins and down towards St. Pierreville, about 15 km away and 200 meters lower. We had a very special rendezvous there: Jason and Sonja (Jeff's brother and sister-in-law, and Bodhi's aunt-and-uncle/heros) were coming to meet us for a long weekend! From there we would be close to our next WWOOF host, where we planned to stay for nearly 3 more weeks. But things don't always turn out as planned, as we would find out...
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| Leaving Curins, Jeff crosses a typical Ardèche stone bridge over a stream. |
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| The village of Albon. |
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| On the way to St. Pierreville we witnessed one of these chestnut vacuum machines at work... |
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| ... much faster than by hand, but also loud, polluting and expensive, not to mention stripping the soil of valuable nutrients. |
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| Scenic cruising on the Chemin des Chataignes between Albon and St. Pierreville... |
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| Katy enjoying the views. |
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| Jeff entering St. Pierreville, population 500 or so. |
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| A great reunion! (L-R): Jason, Sonja, Bo and Katy. Jason and Sonja have arrived on bicycles from Valence on this day, after riding the train from Luzerne, Switzerland. They have rented a flat in St. Pierreville for a long weekend. |
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| St. Pierreville at dusk. |
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| The following morning Sonja gave Bodhi a third-story dunk in the sunshine. |
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| We caught up with Max (our last WWOOF host) at the Sunday market in St. Pierreville where he sells his organic produce. |
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| A breakfast of coffee and croissants, very French. |
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| These two - Jason and Bo - hadn't seen each other since January in Philadelphia. |
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| Taking advantage of a glorious Sunday in Ardèche, the four of us (plus Bo) cycled a big loop of the area... |
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| Looking back at the marvellously-situated St. Pierreville. |
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| We climbed steadily towards the Col des 4 Vios with views like this opening up. |
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| This is by far the highest we've had our bikes so far on this trip (1150m). |
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| Sonja and Bo clowning around. |
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| A wonderfully-situated farmhouse near Mézilhac. |
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| The bells on the church tower (intact) at Mézilhac look strangely similar to a very famous one (cracked) located in Philadelphia! |
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| Here's the whole gang: (L-R) Sonja, Jason, Katy + Bo, Jeff. |
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| Leaving Mézilhac we caught up with the Chemin des Crëtes and had superb scenery open up all around... |
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| ... fall foliage... |
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| ... dramatic landscapes... |
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| ... and ûber-furry cows like this one. |
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| Jason takes a breather under open skies. |
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| Killer riding... |
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...Descending back down from the plateau !
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Jason and Sonja wound up their stay and headed out, Jason on a train back to Luzerne and Sonja staying in France for 2 more weeks to cycle in the Drôme and Provence. We headed on to our next WWOOF stay near Gluiras, only several kilometers from St. Pierreville but with lots of climbing.
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| The ruined farmhouse that our host Vincent is slowly restoring. |
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| Amazing countryside just up the road. |
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| Bo ran about the grounds... |
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| ... enjoying all the terraces. |
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| Apples, apples, and more apples. Jeff and Vincent picked apples all day and Katy sorted them, to be ready for juice-making the following week. |
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| Right, which one will it be... |
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| ...Aha, that's the one I wanted! It's not for nothing that Sonja named Bodhi "Der Klein Apfelkoenig" - The Little Apple King. |
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| Vincent's main activity is bee-keeping, with over 250 hives in the area. Although it was very late in the season, we were able to accompany him on one hive-maintenance trip. Which paved the way for BabyBeeKeeper, pictured above. |
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| Hives arranged in the forest. |
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| Vincent opens the hive... |
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| Legions of honey bees. As it is, it was a terrible season for beekeepers and bees in general. Low honey yields, high bee mortality, unusual timing. Vincent said it was the worst year for bees that he had known of, and that all beekeepers in this part of Europe concurred on this. He said the bees were in such poor shape that it was necessary to feed sugar and even their own honey back to them, just to keep them alive, something rarely done in beekeeping, apparently. |
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| BabyBeeKeeper BreastFeeding. |
Unfortunately our stay chez Vincent was cut short: we left after only 4 of a planned 20 days. To put it simply, Vincent showed anger management problems and acted inappropriately in the presence of Bodhi. So we decided it was in our best interests to move along, which we did without looking back.
We always knew that this might happen. That WWOOFing is a sensitive thing, filled with trust and respect issues and fairness. That one of our WWOOF stays might not work out as planned, for whatever reason. It's just that this time, it is late October, it is getting cold, the days are shortening and the nights lengthening, and we have two weeks to kill before our next engagement. And its hard to organize yourself when there's no internet connection, limited-to-zero phone network, and cold. So our first decision was to descend lower . Amazingly enough, we got ahold of Sonja who was about to leave Valence, and she agreed to cycle back towards us to meet up for a few days. So that's where we began...
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| No complaining here. We're back on the excellent cycling route La Dolce Via. |
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| Aunty Sonja to the rescue. Sonja showed up and immediately restored our spirits. |
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| Jeff and Bo after making a nice campfire. Make no mistake, we suffered some COLD nights out here, temps dropping to below 5°C. |
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| Riverside camping. |
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| Bo always has a good time camping... |
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| ... and adventuring around. |
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| Sonja and Bo in St. Sauveur de Montagut. |
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From St. Sauveur we continued upstream along the Eyrieux heading towards Le Cheylard, as La Dolce Via is in effect a rails-to-trails project.
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| Weather was cool but the scenery was superb. |
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| While the three of us were stopped for a roadside snack break, from his trailer Bodhi spied some wild grapes hanging in a nearby tree and pointed and vocalized! Sonja went and grabbed some... |
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| ... and the little man got his wish. |
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| We found loads of chestnuts at the following campsite and set to boiling them over an open flame. This is gourmet gastronomy for cyclists! |
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| Our camp. Although its cold as anything, Sonja slept under a tarp, and Katy as well. |
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| The Eyrieux in mid-morning. |
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| Now in Le Cheylard, previously an important stop along the old train line. |
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| Leaving Le Cheylard, we found another old train line heading towards Lamastre, this one not as smooth or well-travelled as La Dolce Via. |
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| One of Bo's favorite books. |
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| Sonja enjoying the scenery. |
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| From Les Nonieres, we entered a tunnel nearly 400m long... |
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| ... and then had a great descent down towards Lamastre. |
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| Katy crosses an old viaduct. |
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| Sonja taking in an old farmhouse. |
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| Another cold night camped near Lamastre... |
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| The following morning we descended down the Doux valley towards Tournon-sur-Rhône, temperatures rising every second! |
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| Jeff, Sonja, Bo and Katy. |
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| Jeff coming across the Grand Pont before Tournon. Built between 1379 and 1583, it is significant for having a single semi-circular arch of a nearly 50m span. |
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| An unlikely sleeping spot for us: the Tournon municipal campground. We stayed 2 nights here while we made a travel plan for the upcoming 2 weeks. |
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A view towards the Tournon-Tain bridge over the Rhône and the Vercors Mountains in the distance.
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Afternoon sun lights up the famous Val de Rhône vineyards across the river in Tain L'Hermitage.
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| While still in Tournon we decided to take Bodhi out for a train ride, on the tourist train (Le Train de l'Ardèche) that runs from near Tournon and up the Doux River gorge. This is an original 1903 steam locomotive (restored) that operated on this very line. |
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| All dressed up for the ride, this guy was excited, exclaiming "Choo-choo!" every chance he got. |
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| A glimpse back in time. |
From Tournon Sonja departed and continued southwards to the Drôme and beyond, and we made tentative plans to cycle to Valence and then Grenoble...
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